The CIP's mission is to “inspire Americans to embrace industrial progress as a cultural ideal.” CIP summarizes their philosophy on their website: [1]

“At the Center for Industrial Progress (CIP), we celebrate man’s impact on nature, just as our ancestors celebrated Americans' ability to 'tame a continent.' We celebrate the never-ending project of the industrial revolution: to harness more and more energy to feed machines that do more and more work to make our lives better and better.”

“… As for pollution, so long as we embrace policies that protect property rights, including air and water rights, we protect industrial development and protect individuals from pollution. By contrast, 'green' policies do not improve the human environment, but sacrifice it to the non-human–just ask anyone trying to build an industrial project today.”

The CIP regularly publishes articles “debunking” environmentalism, and promoting the oil and coal industries, as well as some of their common talking points. For example, Alex Epstein has said that “we should think of coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear, as clean energy.” [2]

Industry Consulting Service

The Center for Industrial Progress offers “Speaking” services for corporate events and “Consulting” services for the energy industry. They describe their consulting service as being “unmatched in its ability to successfully out-message 'environmentalists' and turn their supporters into your supporters.” [12], [13]

Epstein's speaking services include keynotes on topics like “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels,” “Energy Heroes,” and “How to Take the Moral High Ground.” He also provides workshops for “custom guidance making the moral case for fossil fuels to neutralize attackers, to turn non-supporters into supporters, and to turn supporters into champions.”

Stance on Climate Change

“The movement to convince the public of catastrophic global warming is fundamentally unscientific. Its leaders do not, as true scientists would, objectively study and relay the full evidence about what drives the climate, they fixate obsessively on CO2. They do not share how poorly understood climate drivers are; they act as if they can predict the climate with certainty. Through manipulation of government agencies, a credulous media, and many of their cloistered colleagues in academia, they have managed to take over much of the field of climatology and the vast majority of its public relations.” [3]

Funding

According to an archived version of their website, the CIP is not a 501c-3 organization, because “with 501c-3 status comes an enormous amount of government invasiveness, including limitations on involvement in policy debates we want to participate in.”* (emphasis added). They no longer share this information on their donations page.

CIP also contendes that “we and our supporters are best-served by a model in which we maintain the flexibility, agility, and lack of red tape to make maximum use of donors' gifts.”* [4]

*The Center for Industrial Progress has since removed their website from the Internet Archive.

Kentucky Coal Association & 'The Coal Truth'

“In praising this piece I must disclose, proudly, that the author is one of my clients. As is the allied website, 'The Coal Truth,' that has a more in-depth expose of “100% renewable,” Epstein wrote. [22]

Alexander Epstein planned to release his “Energy Liberation Plan” for consideration by 2016 political candidates. According to an article by Epstein in Forbes, the Energy Liberation Plan seeks to combat “backwards energy and environmental policies that are anti-development, not anti-pollution.” He contends that we are “squandering the opportunity of a generation, through blind opposition to our three most potent sources of power: hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, and gas), nuclear energy, and hydroelectric energy.” [15]

Epstein concludes that “The Energy Liberation Plan is based on the timeless wisdom of our Founding Fathers, who believed that everyone has the right to produce and consume as they judge best so long as they do not violate the rights of others” (emphasis added).

Originally slated for release on October 5, 2015, the date was postponed and it is unclear when it will actually be released.

September 17, 2015

The Center for Industrial Progress's Alex Epstein wrote an article in Forbes titled “Jerry Brownout,” where he criticizes California governor Jerry Brown for his opposition of fossil fuel use. According to Epstein, “it's crucial to understand just how destructive his anti-oil agenda is.”

“Energy abundance is essential to climate livability—since the natural climate is inherently variable, volatile, and vicious. And oil and other fossil fuels do infinitely more to make it safer than make it more dangerous. This has been proven and documented—there has been a 98% decline in the rate of climate-related deaths since significant global CO2 emissions began. For 40 years doomsayers have hidden our ever-safer climate by conflating mild, manageable global warming, which is real, with catastrophic global warming, which is not,” Epstein writes. [17]

Milloy says that “Virtually every environmental policy I've seen since the early 1990s has been basically politics and not science,” and discusses his believe that the EPA's attempts to clean the air are unnecessary, especially with regards to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) produced largely by automobiles and coal-fired power plants.

November 13, 2014

Alex Epstein released The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, published by Penguin Random House. Epstein asks if everything we know about fossil fuels could be wrong, and suggests readers should “look at the big picture of fossil fuels.” The CIP released the following promotional film, made by Simplifilm, as a book trailer: [20]

“Compared with the alternatives, the overall impact of using fossil fuels is to make the world a far better place. We are morally obligated to use more fossil fuels for the sake of our economy and our environment.” [9]

As of July, 2015, the Centre for Industrial Progress is promoting the book on the main page of their website. Epstein has also promoted the book on his facebook page, titled “I Love Fossil Fuels.”

The “undersigned scientists, philosophers, energy experts, and economists” of the letter ask for a “more rigorous education on energy and environmental issues,” and “are willing to debate anytime, anywhere to defend what [they] believe is right.” [8]

Alex Epstein debated leading environmentalist Bill McKibben on the issue of global warming. Epstein argues that “fossil fuels improve the planet” while McKibben presents the majority scientific view that the continued burning of fossil fuels will have a strongly negative impact on the environment. [10]

Epstein has launched a website, fossilfueldebate.com where he presents his case on the issue — that “McKibben is dead wrong about fossil fuels and our environment.” Epstein purports to take an “objective, scientific look” at why he believes fossil fuels have given us “the greatest environment in human history.” [11]

"Fossil-fuel companies have spent millions funding anti-global-warming think tanks, purposely creating a climate of doubt around the science. DeSmogBlog is the antidote to that obfuscation." ~ BRYAN WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE